1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to networking and communications.
2. Description of the Background Art
Class of service (COS) relates to traffic differentiation where packets are treated differently depending on the indicated forwarding class of the packet. For example, a service provider may specify or guarantee a certain service level in the use of an uplink by a customer. The router connecting to the uplink may use a meter to track and control usage of the uplink in relation to the specified service level for a customer. Unfortunately, conventional techniques for using these meters, such as those described in IEEE RFC 2697, result in underutilization of the bandwidth of a link. Meters such as these may be also used in various other networking or communications applications.
It is highly desirable to improve networking and communications systems. In particular, it is desirable to improve the method for assigning packets to COS priority queues and for selecting packets to be dropped.